The Wolf God's Unwanted Luna

Vivians POV

I felt the storm raging inside him through our bond, conflicting and chaotic and barely contained. For the briefest moment, I caught something unexpected, anxiousness, maybe even remorse, and then just as quickly it vanished. Like a door slammed shut, the emotions disappeared as if they’d never been there at all.

When he opened his eyes, they were frozen and unreadable.

My breath caught.

"Because I don’t care what I have to do or who I have to crush, as long as I end up with what I want," he said coldly.

He stepped back, slipping from my hands. I stood there staring up at him, and I felt something inside me fracture. My hands dropped to my sides.

"My mistake," he said, voice flat, "was thinking I needed to be someone you’d want to spend forever with. I’ve been pretending, pretending to be gentle, pretending to be safe, while fighting chaos behind the curtain. I let you believe in a side of me that never truly existed."

His eyes locked onto mine. "But the truth is, I was born a monster, and a monster I remain. A weapon built to destroy. I’m no savior, Vivian."

His voice never wavered. Each word landed like something thrown with intention.

"I’m a creature of the night. Vile. Cold-blooded. Created to stalk, seduce, and kill. And you know that. You’ve always known." He leaned closer, his breath brushing my neck as he tucked my hair behind my ear. "Even our bond can’t hide that truth from you. You’ve felt it too, the darkness clinging to me like a second skin."

I stood rigid, fists clenched so tightly my nails bit into my palms. I needed the pain. I welcomed the distraction from the weight of what he was saying. He wasn’t lying, every word rang with raw truth and I knew it.

I had felt that darkness, of course I had. But when I was with him it always faded, like mist retreating from sunlight. I’d been choosing blindness, painting him into the shape of what I thought a mate should be, someone gentle and devoted and capable of being saved. I’d let myself believe that once he claimed me, everything fundamental about him changed.

But now I had to wonder: had he simply learned to wear the role I needed him to play?

My voice came out unsteady. "But were your feelings for me a lie?"

He let out a long breath and moved to stand in front of me again. His expression shifted, just slightly, into something more careful.

"No," he said, and for the first time in this whole gut-wrenching exchange, his voice held something fragile. "That, Vivian, is the one thing that’s never been false. You’re real. A blessing I never expected. I never imagined having a mate, let alone one like you. And I think," he paused, "fate hoped you would be enough to make me stop."

He said it quietly, with a reverence that made it sound like something he’d carried for a long time before saying it out loud. He didn’t look dangerous in that moment. Just tired. Ancient. Worn down by years I’d never lived through, by things I couldn’t fully imagine.

And still, the words cut deeper than I was ready for.

Zaliver stood before me looking like a stranger. The sharp-cut suit, the polished shoes, the air of someone who had made a thousand calculated decisions before walking into this room. My Zaliver wore dark jeans and worn boots, black shirts that fit without trying. But this version, I didn’t know this one. Or maybe it was the real one, and I had only ever been shown what I could handle.

A cold truth settled in my chest. People had layers. The face they showed the world, the one they kept for family, the one that only came out with someone they loved, and underneath all of it, the version even they tried not to look at directly. I had only ever known his third face. The lover. And I had let the bond convince me that loving someone deeply enough could rewrite what they were. That the monster the rest of the world feared had simply dissolved because he held me gently.

I’d forgotten what he actually was.

"Stop what?" I asked, my voice thin.

His eyes dropped from mine. "War for the skies," he said, low and distant.

My heart skipped. "You’re going to start a war?" My voice rose. "Is this why I was bonded to you? To stop you from going through with your revenge?" I stepped back, breath catching. "This is about your brother’s death?"

His silence confirmed everything.

"There’s more to this than I ever saw," I whispered. "I was blind. Completely blind."

Zaliver turned his head slightly. "Don’t act so surprised, Vivian. I’ve ended lives for far less."

His tone was flat, casual, disturbingly so. The girl from the clearing surfaced in my mind. Martha. Her face behind my eyes like a ghost.

He shrugged. "It’s not like I lack an army or the means to take down a fellow god. You of all people should know that."

His back was to me. I opened my mouth to respond, and then I heard footsteps, fast and purposeful, from more than one direction.

Then came a sound I knew would stay with me.

My parents’ cries.

I whipped around. A circle of people had closed around us. My parents were in the grasp of two large figures. I saw the glint of needles. My mother’s eyes widened. My father growled, low and furious, and then both of them went limp.

"What the hell are you doing?" I screamed, the sound cracking as it left my throat.

I spun, looking for anyone, and what I found made my blood go cold.

Luke. Johnson. Mila. Courtney. Standing among the strangers. Silent, stiff, expressions grim. There was sorrow in their eyes, not guilt, which somehow made it worse.

Betrayal moved through me like something physical.

"I have urgent matters to attend to," Zaliver said, turning back to face me. "This conversation will have to end here." He paused. "Vivian." The sadness in his eyes when he said my name was the most unsettling thing I’d seen all day. "It’s been a pleasure."

Something in my chest came apart.

This wasn’t him. Not the man who whispered my name like it mattered. This was the Lupus Deus, standing in full view without the softness I’d mistaken for permanence.

His gaze returned to me, and for a fraction of a second, I saw it. Pain. Like he didn’t want this. Like some part of him hated it.

"What—" I started, taking a step back, stomach twisting.

"Sleep," he murmured. "Grieve. Forget."

And then everything fell away.

The last thing I saw before the darkness took me was Zaliver’s face. And the smile on it was the most broken thing I’d ever seen.

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